Moles in gardens

This place is very nearby here and seems appropriate:
http://chateaudemole.fr/le-chateau/

le-chateau-de-mole

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A complete digression, but this has reminded me that in my youth I worked for a company where the storekeeper and his sidekick were Mr. Squirrel and Mr. Mole.
This had the advantage that nobody ever had to ask twice what their names were.
But it was unfortunate for them because a transfer or promotion within the company had been completely ruled out. Someone in management had decreed that they should never be separated, since it was far too hilarious to spoil the joke!

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In about 1970 in the Gt Yarmouth Sunday League Division 5 was a team called The Coop. The two fullbacks were called Allcock and Balls.

I think we’ve visited there with our car-club pals… it does seem to ring a bell.

They organize a brief wine-tour each autumn and St Emilion is delicious… hic :woozy_face: :woozy_face:

Not much chance this year, sadly.

We used these very successfully in the UK:

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what does he do with the moles?

One of my daughter’s favourite books when she was little…

image

he throws them over the fence into our wood Sarah. The dead ones start to smell terrible in his van in very short order.

I wonder how he is killing them…
OH caught a mole (by chance) and left it in a bucket with a closed lid… meaning to take it to woodlands miles away and let it go free…

anyway… he forgot for a few days and when we eventually checked the bucket the mole had vanished… all that was left were the hands/feet and fluff… looked as if it had exploded. We felt terrible…

professional mole traps. We don’t hear any bangs so not the explosive type. He gets them right into the runs and marks them so he he can find them again.

He is more efffective than Jim then. He does the same, but only catches a few.

know thine enemy :wink:

We have no idea why our mole disintegrated in just a couple of days… since it was caught in the bucket whilst running above the surface (which they rarely do… ) we never used the exploding stuff or poison… but did sometimes catch them in the “vice of death” old fashioned trap set in the tunnel…

Ah - I read (human) in your text as humane - so I thought he caught them and released them elsewhere, I was imagining a van full of moles :joy:Poor moles though - I’d rather have no lawn than kill them.

I’m genuinely puzzled by the difficulty people have with this!
It’s true that old-fashioned mole traps (like the one below*) have 3 disadvantages: (1) they kill the moles rather than repel them (but none of the humane methods I have tried - including Ultrasons Solaire - work for long); (2) you have to dispose of the bodies - but like Graham’s professional I just throw them over into an adjoining thicket (the fact that professionals use conventional mole traps should give us a clue to what works best, shouldn’t it?); and (3) it’s not a permanent solution - another mole will eventually show up - but then I don’t think there are any permanent solutions!


Here’s what I do: put on gloves; reach into the mole hill and take out handfulls of dirt until you see or feel the tunnel; if it’s a run (ie. the tunnel comes into the molehill one side and goes out another) put in the trap and cover it - I use old plant pots weighted down with a stone over the drainage holes - it’s important that it’s completely covered; if it’s not a run ignore it - or rather just rake off the earth to let the grass grow again; generally the mole activity ceases so you know when the trap has gone off - dispose of dead mole; check every day or so anyway because sometimes the trap goes off but no mole - just reset it; sometimes the mole activity just ceases but the trap hasn’t gone off - just remove it and rake over. In all cases it can take a few days - but you always get rid if the mole one way or another in the end!

  • just a photo from the internet - mine are similar to this but old so covered in corrosion, etc
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that’s the sort we had… we inherited it when we bought the place… and nearly 30 years later… left it as a gift for the new owner… :relaxed: :relaxed: :hugs:

So much human ingenuity devoted to the destruction of tiny mammals!
Guess it helps to take our minds off the possibility that Global warming is about to tear the roof off and wash away the foundations.
But we will have an immaculate lawn when it happens!

and relatively undamaged mower blades :wink:

I know what you mean Mike - and there are indeed areas of the garden and even the lawns where I don’t catch them - but in our gites lawns, swimming pool set in a lawned garden, and big main lawn area where the family and guests play football, etc, I feel there is no alternative.

I got rid by putting 50-100mls of diesel down each hole or in their obvious runs, I suppose the smell deters and they go elsewhere. Don’t suppose you would want to do that in your veg patch! I used that method originally on the lawns at our property in the UK and always worked well